S.A. Opera revisits 'Rigoletto'

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, June 17, 2010

Mark Richter, founder and artistic director of the San Antonio Opera, is proud of the company's 2003 production of “Rigoletto.”

That doesn't mean he hasn't wanted to take another crack at it.

“We did it at McAllister Auditorium with a reduced orchestra,” Richter said. “It was very well done; it was one of the first shows that introduced our company to a higher level of standards. But now that our budgets are much higher, I've wanted to do it again with a full orchestra.”

And so, the company is closing its 14th season this weekend with a beefed-up “Rigoletto.”

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This time around, the company is working with a full orchestra and a budget of about $330,000. Last time, the budget was about $60,000, Richter said.

A smaller budget meant, among other things, that the company couldn't do an extensive casting search, he said.

“Before, we had to kind of pick and choose from regional voices, which are very good voices, but there's a certain type of voice that Verdi requires — the kind of large, beautiful, powerful voices that can overpower a 50-piece symphony,” he said. “For those kinds of voices, you have to go find them where they're singing.

“Before, we didn't have the kind of knowledge of budgets to go pick the kind of talent and voice we wanted. Now, we do.”

The opera tells the tragic tale of Rigoletto, the court jester whose thirst for vengeance over the court's treatment of his daughter leads him to plot a murder; the plan goes awry and leads, instead, to his daughter's death. The piece includes “La donna è mobile,” one ofthe songs in the tenor repertoire.

Verdi, it seems, knew he was onto something with that one.

“When Verdi wrote the opera, he kept the tune secret until the dress rehearsal,” Richter said. “The next day, it was already the hit of the town — everybody was already humming the melody. That's powerful. Imagine that — this was just from (what came) trickling out of the opera house, choristers hitting the bars, singing these little melodies they'd heard once or twice. That's something only opera could do.”